About Patricia:

I am a retired minister, born and raised in indiana. I have lived in a variety of places, including 4 years in Switzerland. I moved to texas a little over 2 years ago. My undergraduate degree is in psychology, and I have a Master's of Divinity degree, as well.

I have always been interested in young peoples' education and spent a great deal of time helping my own children with their homework when they were young. Since my retirement I have done a lot of volunteer and part-time work, mainly in two areas:

1. I have worked as an English as Second Language tutor, have in fact organized
the ESL programs in 2 different library systems in Indiana, and have been a
resource person for a number of refugee families from Eritrea who came to
Indianapolis, associated with the church I was attending there.
2. I have worked as a tutor through the Boys and Girls Club where I was honored
as Volunteer of the Year, and also helped to tutor 4 of the Eritrean children
mentioned above. One of my greatest joys in that regard was in teaching 2
brothers to read; they were 6 and 12 years old at the time, barely spoke
English, and could not read or write in their native language (neither could
their parents). The most difficult thing about leaving Indiana to move to
Texas was leaving those 4 children who had become very special to me.

What I enjoy most about tutoring children, or teaching ESL to kids or adults, is seeing the "light bulb" suddenly turn on, when a previously difficult or seemingly impossible concept suddenly makes sense to them. My strong points are in the social sciences and humanities, including language arts, psychology, sociology, and religion, and could easily tutor in any of these at both the elementary and high school levels. I am also fairly fluent in German and do well in elementary school math. In fact, I have experience (see above) tutoring in all elementary school subjects.

I look forward to an opportunity to get to know you, and to help you become the best student you can be.